Call me weird, but sometimes I find leafing through a dictionary to be an interesting pastime. Recently, a friend had given me a CD with Black's 3rd, which was published around the 1930s I believe. As some of you well know, subsequent books have been 'revised' to pull out entries deemed 'politically incorrect' so as to dumb down future generations as to their history and so I find these older editions to be very enlightening.
From the entry entitled "Burying Alive" I found this:
BURYING ALIVE
In English law. The ancient punishment of sodomites, and those who contracted with Jews. Fleta, lib. 1, c. 27,
Considering how sodomy and dealing with Jews has only become popular in the past 100 years or so, it appears the ancient punishment was highly effective at deterring those particular crimes for a long period of time.